Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Wednesday March 02, 2011 @11:32AM
from the now-that's-a-gap dept.

suraj.sun writes "Bing overtook Yahoo for the first time worldwide in January, and increased its lead in February, according to web analytics company, StatCounter. Its research arm StatCounter Global Stats finds that globally Bing reached 4.37%, in February ahead of Yahoo! at 3.93%. Both trail far behind Google's 89.94% of the global search engine market." Just a little more plagiarizing to go!

I wish someone - even Microsoft - would come up with a decent alternative to Google. Being a monopoly is making them more and more corrupt, and by being the gatekeeper, they now own too much of the internet.

I wish someone - even Microsoft - would come up with a decent alternative to Google. Being a monopoly is making them more and more corrupt, and by being the gatekeeper, they now own too much of the internet.

By definition, Google isn't a monopoly. They aren't the only search engine in town, they just happen to be the most successful with a vast majority of the market share. That's not because they are erecting large barriers to entry, it's just because the other search engines aren't as smart as theirs.

No, it's not. Google has not engaged in any anticompetitive practices to hold on to that market share. Being successful simply because you're good at what you do is not a crime. Microsofts agreements with OEMs, other software makers and Intel were used to make it impossible for other OS makers to compete. It would be like if Google created a new standard called norobotsexceptgoogles.txt and lowered the page rank of any sites that didn't refuse to be crawled by anyone but google.

Google may not be a true monopoly but they are an effective monopoly. However that said there is nothing wrong or illegal about being a monopoly. It is illegal however to abuse that monopoly to stop future competitors.

Considering they've let Verizon lock some of their Android phones to exclusively use Bing as their default search engine, with no way of removing said app without tinkering and/or rooting, I'd say they've been staying far from anything that could put them in trouble in that regard.

1: You don't have to be anti-competitive to be a monopoly. You just have to be significantly larger than your nearest rival.

2: Drastically undercutting your opponents prices in a new market by leveraging profits from a different market to support it can be seen as anti-competitive. Many for profit vendors see google pushing open source products as this.

No. you are incorrectly believing that monopoly has a negative connotation because you only ever hear about it when preceded by "abuse of".

Monopolies are not inherently bad. Its just that it puts an entity solely motivated to profit in a position of inequitable power that can be leveraged to further that goal at the expense of everyone else. Abusing that power is negative.

The only inherent bad quality of a monopoly is in the homogeneous qualities of a monoculture being slow or unable to adapt to rapid chang

Even when Microsoft was at the top of it's position in the 90s, it didn't have exclusive control. You could always get a Mac or use Linux.

If I decide I'm tired of Google, I can at no cost and with no limitations switch to yahoo, or Bing or one of the other engines out there. There is no cost to the customer, there are no restrictions in choosing to use other options that are equally free.

As has been pointed out on Slashdot before, you aren't the customer. You are what is being sold to advertisers. The advertisers are the Google's customers, and from their point of view, if they want to pay for search engine advertisements, Google is the monopoly equivalent of Microsoft.

I was actually shocked when I read the headline. I knew Google was popular, but the number two position is only at 4%? Wow.

No, it's not. Google has not engaged in any anticompetitive practices to hold on to that market share. Being successful simply because you're good at what you do is not a crime. Microsofts agreements with OEMs, other software makers and Intel were used to make it impossible for other OS makers to compete. It would be like if Google created a new standard called norobotsex—

Google has a near monopoly (which btw, is not illegal in of itself) because the best product is maintaining its position and crowding out inferior solutions.

On the other hand, many superior solutions have been illegally barred from entry because of anti-competitive and illegal practices by Microsoft. Google's situation actually encourages competition and an ever improving product. Microsoft's solution destroys competition and ensures product stagnation and inferior products compare

MOST CERTAINLY NOT.
I am unaware of any rival startup that has been squashed, bullied, or suffered a hostile takeover by Google. Nor am I aware of any that have been taken to court over frivolous charges, with little other purpose than to bleed them of money.
You may or may not paint Google as evil. I'm not believing it, but I'll listen. But, when you compare them to Microsoft, you've lost your case, and your audience.
BTW - you may or may not have noticed, but Microsoft's most innovative stuff has al

They are a near-monopoly. Erecting barriers to entry isn't a sign of a monopoly either, it's a sign of a monopoly that is unfairly using its position/power. (In fact, in most of the western world, anti-monopoly legislation doesn't prevent monopolies, it only prevents them from misusing their monopolistic power.)

But regardless, it's the lack of a better (or comparable and competing) search engine that I lament.

That didn't stop the EU from forcing MS to provide a browser ballot. Despite the fact that IE's market share is falling, Window's market share is falling, you can fully uninstall IE8 from W7, and there are at least 4 other big players in the game who are increasing market share, EU still felt the need to step in.

It would be funny though, if Google was forced to put a ballot on Google.com, which would redirect you to your search engine of choice.

Google has not been taken to court and been declared a monopoly, but by definition they have an overwhelming market share in searching, and are by definition a monopoly. In this case they are a natural monopoly, one that has simply grown up by having all their users consume their product over competitors (and by users I mean people who search their site).

Microsoft became a monopoly in the same way, in that they tied MS DOS and then windows to IBM PC, compatibles, and clones and everyone bought them. Howev

By definition, Microsoft isn't a monopoly. They aren't the only operating system in town, they just happen to be the most successful with a vast majority of the market share. That's not because they are erecting large barriers to entry, it's just because the other operating systems aren't as smart as theirs.

See what I did there?

I think you may have missed this entire wikipedia article mostly about microsoft, most of which google is not guilty of. Neither are pure saints or pure sinners, but one is certainly way worse than the other, and only the astroturfers claim MS is the better one.

MS has a cash cow in office. Like so many other companies they are going to have to risk the cash cow to insure future relevance. Just imagine what would have happened if American car companies would have moved on from gas guzzling cars of the 70's and innovated instead of basking in their multi-hundred-million dollar profits. Reagan would not have had to give them 1.5 billion, in 1980, tax dollars that althout repaid represented a failure of the free market. Likewise Bush would not again have put 13.4

I find Bing maps to be much better than Google's. At least for my area, bing has higher resolution maps, and the Bird's eye view is a nifty feature: view and location from any angle. I also thing Bing maps has better transitions for zooming. Zoom in real far on Google maps, then zoom out very fast. Your old position will be a small square in a sea of gray, where the new images haven't loaded yet. On Bing maps you get more transitions as you zoom out.

In the case of "less" vs "fewer", for me -- presumably because of lots of exposure to 'correct' English -- it jars and makes me feel uncomfortable when I hear it.

You'd think it odd if I asked for "fewer sugar" in my coffee, or that due to cuts the local council is getting "fewer money". For many of us it jars the same way if someone says the library is getting "less books". However, as I said, it seems to be a lost cause and I'm having to get used to it.

Where I live, all the goverment employees computers are set to use Bing in the IE search box (and this cannot be changed, it is enforced by group policy) because Microsoft gave the government a discount if they made all government employees use Bing on their work machines.

Of course government employees can type in "google.com" into the address bar and use Google (or whoever else) if they wish, but I would imagine most just enter things into the search bar.

Couldn't the same be said for Google? Isn't Google the default search engine for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera? Doesn't Google toolbar come pre-installed on some machines? Isn't Google the default search engine on every iPhone and Android device?

I'm surprised there are so few yahoo users - after all, the Yahoo Toolbar is bundled with the Java installer for Windows, and with Yahoo Messenger, and at least in Firefox, it automatically hijacks the search bar, which most users don't know how to configure.

Overtook? Really? Why do we have editors? Why not just vote on the news items that get posted, since the editors apparently are incapable of doing their job. On top of that, the whole first sentence is a complete mess, not to mention the rest of the summary. Did a 5th grader write it?

Maybe the submitter should have plagiarized someone competent in grammar and spelling.

Since Yahoo is powered by Bing, isn't this a little like saying Bing has "overtook" Bing?

In one sense, yes. But in another, no. Yahoo was once powered by Google. Since Yahoo can just switch out what they use relatively seamlessly from the perspective of the average user, it's implicitly understood that the numbers are just comparing what the internet population uses as a portal/url for search.

Yes - this is the case in the large organisation I work for - we share terminals briefly for looking up data, and sometimes search the web. It isn't time-worthwhile to go through changing the default search engine to google, although I still do it every now and then.

I ask this as someone that has seen his wife bring up Google in the Firefox browser window to do a search when the Google search bar is right! frickin! there!

She probably used web browsers for awhile before search bars were "invented". I certainly did.

Its much more of a pain to delete your history in the search bar than just "X" a tab. Some things I search for are best forgotten, as best as possible, I guess.

It also annoys me that once I'm "done" with searching something, the search bar does not blank and I've gotta keep looking at something I'm done with. Poor UI. Its like not being allowed to kill a browser tab or not being allowed to delete an email. Boy

I'd bet that most of this increase is due the switch by Verizon to force Bing as the default search provider. Every so often, I forget to go to google.com first -- seeing the lack of usable results I'm instantly reminded and switch back to google, but I'm sure that still counts in Bing's favor.... perl @+?*.-&'_:$#/%!"

The default Window Search in XP just does not work. It can't find anything. Simple text in a.txt file doesn't come up. It's like nobody ever tested it at all before release.

And then there's Sharepoint. Again, I can "search" for a term that I know is somewhere and it won't show up. Since search doesn't work, I have to send raw URLs out to people and they're always something like "https://monkey.spank.org/gtfo/wtf/LAME/sites/Guides%20or%20Documents%20Blah.aspx?RootFolder=%2asdf%2zxcv%2fGTFO%2fSites%20

Monoculture is not inherently good or bad. It can be leveraged for good and bad. Corporate monoculture is generally bad because corporations are amoral and hence act unethically and illegally. Microsoft's behavior is infamous. I disagree with many choices made at the Googleplex, but to me it doesn't appear they have yet leveraged their monoculture in anyway that rivals Microsoft.

Windows is an inferior product (especially in the past), which has lent significant ammunition to critics of Microsoft. Is ther

Because the interface to Google monoculture is just a standard compliant browser. So the cost of switching away from Google, when its demands are onerous, is practically zero. The only way Google can maintain its leadership position is by making sure its customers are happy. Otherwise they will just walk away. The foundation of Microsoft monoculture was interlocking monopolies between the OS and the application stack (mainly MSOffice) and the switching costs were enormous.

How many tens of millions of dollars in development hours and PR efforts has this cost them? And for what? To say they are a bit better than Yahoo which is quite literally a zombie?

Once again, Microsoft makes much hyperbole about obtaining dominance, rolls out it's big new weapon of terror, fires it's salvo and calls it a victory when it manages to only barely scratch the armor of it's target.

To say they are a bit better than Yahoo which is quite literally a zombie?

It is even more pathetic than that. Yahoo is actually using Bing as its search engine provider for quite some time. So the migration is not due to any inherent superiority of Bing over Yahoo, noticed by the users. The computers set to use yahoo by default, which happened when the users installed yahoo instant messenger some four or five years ago, are dying. They are being replaced by new ones that use Bing by default. This set of users, about 8% of the total, are clueless about search engines. These chump

Yahoo is just reselling Bing now. Yahoo no longer has a search engine. So Bing's total is 29.2%. The US market has been split about like that for the last several years - Google with 2/3 of the market, Microsoft + Yahoo with 1/3, and the rest nowhere.